


let the darkness lead us into the light

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Curse Breaking, Curses, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-17 06:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17554865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: Returning home from an unsuccessful courtship, Paulo hides from a storm in a seemingly abandoned house. Unbeknownst to him, it's not abandoned at all, and its owner is more than interested in the intruder. He lets Paulo stay as long as he wants to, on the condition that Paulo will never see him...





	1. The Empty House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prompt_fills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prompt_fills/gifts).



> I've somehow fallen for fairy-tale retellings lately, and this turned out to be much longer than I originally expected. I planned a oneshot, then it became a longfic, and finally, we have a multichapter.
> 
> This fic would never happen without the lovely @prompt_fills, who prompted this and cheered me on, and cured me of several writer's blocks. 
> 
> Please excuse the Mourinho-Sorcerer cameo, despite him not quite having anything in common with this pairing, there's simply no one better for the dark business.

Paulo has never trespassed in his life. The property of other people was sacred and he was no thief. Besides that, his hometown had strict laws, and he’s never felt like letting himself be pilloried for a couple of his neighbor’s pears. But even morals and laws have limits, and he figures that if his own life is at stake, trespassing is not really a crime. Especially when he has no intention to loot the place and simply needs to wait out the storm somewhere, and possibly dry his clothes.

The place he’s looking at doesn’t seem to be inhabited, and most likely, there would be nothing to take anyway. The walls look imposing even now, despite falling apart at the top, the rough stones coming loose where countless storms and rains have crumbled the sealant away. He will be safe from wild animals at least. 

Curiously, despite the high walls, the gate isn’t locked. For a moment he thinks that it is, until the rusty bolts give in and the gate opens with a loud screech, only enough for him to slide inside. He closes the gate after himself, as he definitely doesn’t want to invite anything to follow him. Although he’s likely the only fool outside in a storm like this.

The building he’s facing might seem large enough, but the garden surrounding it is enormous. He can’t even see how much, because some of the corners are melting in the darkness. And as much as the house looks abandoned and decrepit, the garden looks like it’s decided to let nature finally set it free. The trees are heavy with fruit, the night air carrying the sweet smell of the apples and pears already rotting on the ground. A half-fallen summerhouse is standing in one of the corners, its walls covered by ivy leaves. In the semi-darkness, Paulo almost trips over some stones that, upon closer inspection, are the remnants of some basin that probably held water once, but now only weeds are growing proudly in the rectangle. Closer to the house, he finds another, smaller fountain, full of fallen leaves and other debris, with a grotesque gargoyle on top, looking at him with blind stone eyes. If he was slightly less brave, he’d be running away from there, screw the storm and heavy rain.

He decides to try to get inside while there is still some light left, or else he wouldn’t even find an entrance. The windows, curiously, are not broken, and he’s not the kind of person to throw a rock through them. He finds a staircase on the side of the house, and a door on top, but it’s locked and won’t budge even when he leans all his weight on it. He tries the main door on the front of the house, hidden behind an arcade passage, but has no luck either. He considers sleeping in the passage, as it provides at least some shelter from the rain, but then he sees the balcony.

It’s low enough for even a climber as bad as him to manage to climb up the stone railing. He slips once or twice on the wet edge, but finally gets on the balcony and pushes the door. Strangely, this one isn’t even closed. It opens when he merely pushes it, and lets him in, together with some wet leaves the wind blows inside from the balcony. Paulo closes the door again and takes a look around.

He is in a large hall, empty save for a few pieces of furniture covered by sheets of waxed canvas to protect them from dust. The walls are empty as well, although he can see hooks in them which probably once held paintings or candleholders. At the very end of the hall, there’s a small, inconspicuous door.

He crosses the hall carefully, trying not to trip over anything. The storm outside intensifies, rain beating at the windows and lightnings illuminating the empty hall at least thrice before he reaches the door. The room he finds behind it is much smaller, and somehow also feels warmer. Whoever covered the furniture and took down the paintings before leaving this place most likely forgot about this room. The armchair in front of the large fireplace isn’t covered, there’s even a pelt in front of it, like whoever used to sit there liked to keep their feet warm. A small table to the side to put a glass of wine or a book on, a candleholder near the window, chairs in the corners. There’s still a pile of wood neatly lined up next to the fireplace, and he finds a tinderbox on the mantelpiece.

He gratefully takes off the wet shoes and places them near the fire to dry. Then he takes off his coat and untangles the scarf stuck to his neck. The wet silk of the coat screeches and then makes a loud plopping sound when it falls to the ground. Paulo lets the shirt fall on the same pile. As he feels the warmth of the fire on his skin, he sighs with relief. It feels a little bit awkward, getting undressed in a house that is not his, but it’s still better than catching his death in the wet clothes. 

He hangs the wet clothes on the chairs in the room, and sits on the pelt, stretching out his hands to the fire. Suddenly, he gets the dreadful feeling of being watched. It’s like he feels a pair of eyes burning a hole in the back of his neck. He turns around briskly, but sees nothing but darkness behind the door. He turns back to the flames, trying to shake the feeling off.  _ Old houses have this power, _ he tells himself.  _ They always make you feel like there’s something lurking in the dark. _

A minute after, he jumps to his feet. There is a sound. There definitely is. 

Paulo hesitates between banging the door shut and hiding in a corner, and going to see what is causing the sound. As always, his curiosity wins. 

He grabs the candleholder and tries to light the candles still stuck in it. He manages to light three of the five; covered with dust as they are, they make a crackling sound and spit sparkles over his hands, but the flames are steady enough. He walks out of the room and aims the light at the dark corners of the hall. They are empty. The he hears the sound again. He follows it down the stairs. They lead to a hall even larger than the one upstairs. This one is completely empty, the tiled floor is covered in dry leaves. Then finally, he finds what is causing the sound. A large rose bush growing right next to the window, its branches knocking on the glass whenever the wind blows in the right direction.

He breathes a sigh of relief. 

Taking one final look around the empty hall, he walks up the staircase again, fingers leaving traces in the dust on the railing. A stripe of warm light is pouring out from the room with the fireplace, and he can’t wait to sit in front of it again.

“You shouldn’t be here,” a voice says.

Paulo drops the candleholder and stumbles back. Two of the candles’ flames die out in the fall, the third one keeps burning until someone’s foot in a high leather shoe puts out the flame. Paulo’s heart is beating too fast now, and his hand creeps up his chest like it can still it through his own ribcage.

“I… I’m sorry,” he says, taking a step back although the stranger isn’t attempting to come close to him, staying in the shadows. “I… didn’t know someone lived in here, I… just needed a shelter from the storm. I’ll grab my things and go, I’m sorry.”

There’s no answer. Paulo tilts his head curiously, trying to see who he is talking to, but the darkness is too thick, too dense for him to make out anything more than an idea of a figure. 

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks.

The voice is still silent, but Paulo knows that the man… or whatever it is he’s talking to… hasn’t left. Whoever it is, they are only standing there, unmoving.

“No,” sounds from the darkness then. “Stay as long as you want to.”

Paulo shivers. He feels like running away, actually, if it weren’t for the raging storm outside, and the fact that he is almost naked. “Thank you,” he says, remembering his manners. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Kind…” the stranger repeats, then Paulo hears steps in the darkness, disappearing in the darkness of the staircase, and then silence.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

 

~ ~ ~

 

The morning finds him huddled by the dying fire, eyes fixed on the door. It doesn’t move all night, and the house is eerily quiet, save for the branches constantly knocking on the window downstairs. Still, he’s almost afraid to move from the spot when the sun rises.

His clothes are almost dry, only the coat is still a bit damp to the touch, the thick layers of silk having soaked up way too much water. He leaves it hanging on the back of the chair and creeps out of the room.

The house doesn’t look as frightening in the daylight. There are no traces of another human being, only the candles still lying on the floor remind him of last night. More than ever he feels like his night encounter wasn’t real, because why would anyone live here and not do anything about the leaves at least? 

Just as he manages to convince himself that darkness and his mind played tricks on him, he pushes the handle and finds the front door unlocked.

He walks out in the garden. The garden indeed looks like it’s hasn’t been taken care of for years. The house gives him the same impression. If he really did come across someone last night, he can’t believe it was the house’s owner. The grass is cold and wet from rain, droplets still hanging on every branch and leaf. Most of the fruit is on the ground, knocked down by the wind and rain. Paulo hesitates, but then picks up two apples. It will do just good for breakfast, and also the dinner he didn’t have last night.

When he looks over to the house, he can see the rose bush that scared him last night. There are a few late red blossoms, half of the petals missing, the remaining washed and beaten up by countless rains. He slips the apples in his pocket and walks up to the bush. The branches touching the window are strangely crooked from growing too close to the wall. He reaches up to break the tips off.

“Stop!” a voice sounds above his head. 

Paulo does, and looks up immediately. Whoever is talking to him, must be standing on top of the side staircase, hidden by the wall. If he stepped a bit back, maybe he’d see…

He makes a careful step back.

“Stop!” the voice says, louder now. 

Paulo does, but frowns. “Why can’t I see you?”

“You wouldn’t want to see me,” the stranger says. “Trust me. It’s better like this.” 

Paulo frowns. He can’t quite guess anything about the stranger from his voice. He sounds young, but voices can be deceiving. “Fine. Why can’t I touch the roses?”

“Why do you think you can?”

Right. It’s not his house, after all. “They make noise at night.”

There is silence, like the stranger is looking for another argument. “I’m used to it,” the voice says then. “Take whatever you want. But leave the roses alone.”

“You still don’t want me to leave?” Paulo asks. 

“Stay all you want,” the voice says, and then Paulo hears the door screech, and close. Against his better judgment, he runs up the stairs and pushes the handle. The door is locked.

He returns back to the garden, and eats his apples sitting on the edge of the basin. Somehow he doesn’t feel like going inside, now that he knows for sure that he is not alone in there. The invitation doesn’t change much.

As he looks at the dirty, crumbling windows of the house, the stranger’s words make even less sense to him. _Take whatever you want._ What could possibly be in there that he would want to take? An old candleholder? Does he indeed look  _ that _ poor?

He gets up and walks back to the front door. He still hesitates a bit, but then remembers that he still left his coat in the room upstairs, and he needs to retrieve it anyway. He might as well look around before that.

The hall is quiet, save for the annoying clacking of the rose bush against the window, but he’s already getting used to it. On the left, there are a couple empty rooms. One of them has heavy cupboards with glass doors mounted to the walls, and they seem like they are made of fine wood, but they are also completely empty. On the very far end of the hall, Paulo finds another door, and a corridor behind it that leads to a wing that probably used to belong to the servants, back in the days they were needed. There’s a kitchen, also empty, with a few forgotten pots and plates. In one cupboard, he finds two grey mice that look mightily upset that he’s stepped in their kingdom. There’s also a laundry room, with a torn sheet someone left on the washing line. A room full of rusty tools probably meant for gardening and house work. There is definitely nothing worth taking.

As he’s walking up the stairs, Paulo realizes that he’s thinking like a thief. Why is he thinking about taking something? Just because the stranger said that he  _ could _ doesn’t mean he  _ has to _ . He should take his coat and get going. Judging by the grey sky, if he wants to reach the village and find some place to stay over night before it starts to rain again, he should have done so an hour ago.

Just as he’s crossing the hall to reach the room where he spent the night, he notices another door. It looks like it’s cut out in the wall, or rather the ugly wallpaper. He wouldn’t notice it if it wasn’t for the one piece of once probably white curtains catching on something in a place that seemed just odd. It takes him a good while to figure out how to open it, and before he walks in, he puts a chair between the door and the frame, just because he fears it would close with the wind or something, and he’d never get out. Who knows, maybe it’s a trap after all.

The air in the room is heavy, and it takes even more time before Paulo finds a window and manages to let in both light and air. Then he looks around and gasps. 

Whatever was valuable in the house wasn’t taken away. Whatever was valuable in the house must be here, in the piles of furniture, books, pictures and statues. Hidden from possible intruders like Paulo. Why, he doesn’t understand.

Most of the books are written in languages Paulo doesn’t understand, and even those he could understand just don’t seem interesting to him. He goes through the pictures next, hoping to get a clue about who the house belongs to. But the people on the pictures are either women, or are wearing clothes long out of fashion. There is no portrait that could possibly be of the house’s owner. He does find a picture of the house, though, in all its former glory. The walls are actually a light shade of ochre, and the shutters a nice shade of green. But the garden is what catches his attention. The grass is trimmed, there’s water in the basin and the gargoyle fountain, and the fruit trees are blooming. And the house is surrounded by rose bushes, all blooming red.

He spends almost all day going through the treasures in the room, until the last light outside the window dies. Then he closes it without taking anything. Not that he couldn’t use any of the things; a single statue or decorative plate could probably buy him a decent house in his hometown. Which would be more than appreciated, since as the youngest of three brothers, he will have to move out sooner or later. But also, if he tried to sell a decorative plate like this, he would probably get a prison cell instead of a house, because nobody would believe him that a voice told him to help himself to treasures,  _ just leave my roses alone, thank you _ . 

When he gets to the room he spent the previous night in, he finds the fire burning in the fireplace. The small table next to the armchair is set, two plates full of fruit, cheese and bread, and a pitcher of wine standing there.

“It’s for you,” a voice says in the darkest corner where the light or the warmth of the fire can’t reach. 

“Thank you,” Paulo says, trying to wrap his head around the strange hospitality. “But… you don’t have to do this. I mean… I broke into your house.”

“Why is it still bothering you so much?” the stranger asks, and Paulo would swear that he’s smiling. Somehow he hears the smile in his voice. “I told you you could stay.”

“Because it’s wrong,” Paulo says. “It would be wrong even if it was an abandoned house, but it belongs to you.”

“You can stay as long as you want to,” the stranger says. “Go wherever you want, take whatever you want. I’m just going to ask you not to go in the last floor. And leave the roses alone.” 

“What is in the last floor?”

“Me.”

Paulo laughs, although the stranger probably didn’t mean it as a joke. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“People from the village call me Beast.”

“I suppose that’s not the name your mother gave you.”

The stranger falls silent. “What is yours?” he asks then.

“Paulo.”

“What were you doing out in the storm, Paulo? And here. Nobody has set their foot in here for years.”

Now it’s Paulo who pauses, toying with the glass on the table.

“I went to the city to…” he says then and feels the heat in his cheeks. “To ask a girl to marry me.”

He looks at his best clothes, ruined by the rain and mud, with certain regret. 

“Why so far?” the stranger asks, and maybe there’s a hint of amusement in his voice. “Not enough girls in your village or town? I thought I didn’t eat them all.”

Paulo would hit him if he could. “This one is different!” he says. “Beautiful, and smart, and…” 

“And she let you go home in such storm?”

Paulo blushes again, and momentarily he’s grateful for the stranger staying in the shadows. “She didn’t even open the door.”

The stranger doesn’t laugh as Paulo would expect him to. “Try the wine,” he says instead, like he knows exactly when to change the subject to put Paulo out of his misery. “It’s good.”

Paulo does, and it’s really good, if he can judge. He hasn’t had much wine in his life. Which was ridiculous, because his hometown is surrounded by vineyards, but all the wine gets sold, or ends up on some lord’s table.

“Why doesn’t anyone come here?” he asks then.

“Because of me.”

Paulo sighs. He doesn’t understand this game, but if the stranger wants to play it, then he’s down for it. “So you live here alone? And have always lived?”

“No, not always,” the stranger - Beast, if he wants to be called that - says. “But you are the first person I talk to after many years.”

“You’re doing well,” Paulo says, and when the Beast chuckles, adds: “No, really. I like talking to you. Although it’s strange, when I can’t see you.”

In the silence that follows, the sound of the branches knocking on the window downstairs gets to his ears. It doesn’t scare him anymore. 

“What happened to the rest of the roses?” he asks. “I saw the painting. There were many.”

“They died,” the stranger says. “There’s only this one bush left.”

Paulo reaches for the pitcher and pours himself more wine. The stranger doesn’t talk anymore, but Paulo can still feel his presence.

He wakes up on the sofa in the corner of the room, and definitely doesn’t remember lying down to sleep there.


	2. Mario

The house holds more surprises than Paulo expected, and he doesn’t even have to break his promise of not going to the last floor. Every door he opens holds a mystery. Some, on the contrary, give answers.

When Paulo enters a spacious room with polished wooden floors, something crunches under his boots, and he looks down. Broken glass.

Then he takes in the room, the walls with empty golden frames, and he understands.

Not broken glass. Broken mirrors.

Dozens of mirrors.

Now he’s starting to believe Beast’s story, the game of hiding. There is probably only one reason for breaking every mirror in the house. 

He gathers the courage to inquire about it when they are in the room with the fireplace again. It’s raining again behind the windows, with an occasional thunder somewhere in the distance. The season of storms started earlier this year, almost like the weather has decided to keep him in the Beast’s mansion.

“I found the mirror room,” he says. “I mean… what remains of it.”

“I’m sorry if it scared you,” the Beast says, and there’s worry in his voice. “I destroyed a lot of things. But I would never harm you. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I’m not,” Paulo assures him. “I believe you are not a bad person.”

He didn’t think so in the morning when he found the room, but reasoned with himself that if the Beast wanted to kill him or eat him or whatever, he wouldn’t feed him and let him stay in his house. Well, if he can call himself an expert on the Beast’s logic, which he can’t.

“If I weren’t, I probably wouldn’t have brought the curse upon myself,” the Beast mumbles.

“But what curse? I…” Paulo starts and turns towards the dark corner.

The only thing he sees is an abrupt movement as whoever he is talking to takes a step further into the shadows. “Don’t look!” he says. 

Paulo sighs and hunches forward in the armchair, looking into the flames. “But… you said you didn’t want to harm me, what does it matter what you look like?”

“I don’t want to scare you,” the Beast says, then adds in a voice so quiet Paulo isn’t sure if it’s not his own imagination. “I don’t want you to run away.”

“But I won’t!” Paulo objects. “I mean… unless you want me to leave.”  

“No.”

Paulo huffs in annoyance, leaning back in the armchair. “Then at least touch me, do… do something so that I know you’re not just a voice in my head, something I’m imagining!”

The voice is silent. For a while, Paulo almost thinks he made it go away by acknowledging it might not be real. But then something shuffles in the dark corner, and a strange sound gets to his ears, almost like the Beast needed to clear his throat.

“The scarf on your neck,” he says. “Tie it over your eyes.”

Paulo wants to say something about it all being a nonsense, but finds his fingers tugging at the silk. Once he’s holding the red stripe in his hands, he hesitates.

“You don’t have to,” a whisper comes from the corner.

“I want to,” Paulo says, the words giving him the last nudge in the ribs, and he ties the scarf firmly over his eyes. 

For a moment or two, there’s just the sound of the fire, crackling happily in the fireplace, and of the rain outside. But then, steps sound on the tiled floor, measured and fast paced, like those of a soldier who forgot how to walk casually.

Paulo’s heart is beating somewhere in his throat. Blindfolding himself doesn’t seem like the best idea now. 

Hands land on his shoulders, tentatively, like they aren’t used to touch, and just stay there. Paulo gathers his courage and raises his own, reaching up to touch them.

He expects scales, feathers or fur, but the hands are warm to the touch and, if Paulo can judge, definitely human. They try to slip from his grip as soon as he touches them, but when he doesn’t let go, they stay, thumbs gently rubbing at the knots in his neck. 

“What is your name?” he whispers.

There is a pause, like it takes the stranger a while to remember his own name.

“Mario.”

“Mario,” Paulo repeats.

A hand caresses his face, and Paulo would swear to God he’s never felt a gentler touch.

“You are beautiful,” Mario says. “I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you.”

Paulo smiles, feeling a blush creep up his cheekbones. “What kind of monster are you?” he asks. “A monster wouldn’t know beauty.”

Fingers land on his lips, silencing him. He freezes, and after a moment of lingering, Mario lets his hand fall down.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t…”

Paulo catches his hand on instinct, more guessing than knowing where to reach, and pulls it back. Holding his fingers in a firm grasp, he kisses the back of Mario’s hand. He hears Mario’s breath catch in his throat, and before he can pull his hand away, he turns it and kisses his palm. Mario’s fingers return to touch his cheek, trembling, and Paulo nuzzles his palm, suddenly hungry for every bit of warmth he can get. 

A hand wraps around his throat and only the tiniest part of his mind expects it to squeeze, but it’s not nearly enough to make him move. The hand never does more than caress, and his head tilts back of its own accord, exposing his throat even more. 

He feels Mario’s eyes on him, he doesn’t even have to see him. It’s almost like his eyes are burning marks in his skin, wherever they look.

And then he feels Mario’s breath on his neck. 

He’s imagined many different ways his first kiss would happen, but none of those ideas have ever come close to this. Although he doesn’t know if he can call it a kiss, because Mario ignores his lips completely. Instead, he unmistakably finds the spot on Paulo’s neck where his pulse is strongest, and kisses him there, and it feels like he kisses Paulo’s very heart. A shiver goes through him as Mario presses his tongue against the spot, then lets his lips slide down his throat and gently sucks on his collarbone.

Among the small, needy sounds he makes, Paulo manages to slide a hand between their bodies and untie the laces of his shirt, the only invitation he’s capable of at the moment. Mario seems to understand it enough, as he carefully pulls the shirt over his head. 

There is a pause, and in the few moments Mario isn’t touching him, Paulo feels like he will die. 

“Why did you stop?” he asks, and his voice sounds exactly as desperate as he feels.

“I…” Mario says, and his voice has the same desperate tone. 

A log crackles loudly in the fire as it breaks, and Paulo would swear that Mario startled at the sound. He reaches blindly for Mario’s hand, or face, anything he could touch. Mario recoils from the touch that never comes, trying to get out of his reach. “Don’t,” he whispers.

“Then don’t stop,” Paulo breathes and drops his hand back on the armrest.

Mario’s fingers return to touch his shoulders and his sides. Paulo is momentarily happy about sitting safely in the armchair, because he’s sure that his legs wouldn’t be able to support him anymore at this point. His skin is so heated that the warmth of the fire almost feels like a cool breeze against it.

When Mario’s fingers stop at the top of his trousers, he feels his breathing hitch and he has to bite back a groan. 

He has no idea of what’s about to happen, but he knows that he wants it. 

Mario’s hands come to rest on his hips as he kneels before him, then they deftly unlace his trousers and Paulo gasps. It feels like his last breath has left his lungs, because a moment later, he struggles to take another. 

Whatever it is that Mario is doing with his mouth, it feels like sorcery, robbing him of his voice and ability to think straight. 

He doesn’t know much more than that he likes  _ this _ , whatever it is, and wants more of  _ this _ , and never wants  _ this _ to end.

He’s shaking and digging his nails into the upholstery so that he doesn’t have to sink them in his own palms. Somehow he knows that if he could, he would be screaming, but every noise catches somewhere in his throat and threatens to suffocate him. 

“Let go,” he hears Mario whisper.

He does, throwing his head back and gripping the armrests tight before his body arches in an angle he wouldn’t think possible. He chokes out something that could be Mario’s name or something completely different, and falls back in the armchair unceremoniously. His body weighs a ton, and his head is too light, and the air in the room feels too hot and too thick to breathe.

When he finds the strength to reach up and pull the scarf off, chest still heaving and his mouth completely dry, the room is already quiet and empty.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Mario runs inside his bedroom and bangs the door behind him like something is chasing him. He latches the door just in case, and then slides down the wooden panels. 

He will never learn.

When he closes his eyes, he can still see Paulo’s face, an image so sinful that it makes his skin tingle. It’s burned right into his retinas, impossible to escape. The blush under the red stripe of silk. The curve of his lips. His mouth opening and closing without a sound, like a fish out of water.

He drags himself to bed. His body feels weary and numb, like it wants to remind him of his curse that he’d been content to forget the past few days. For a while, he felt human again. He felt like the world was opening a new window for him, letting in a bit of daylight after all those years he spent in the darkness.

And then he goes and makes the same mistake again.

He hates, hates, hates himself.

The window is open and the rain is pouring right onto the upholstery of the sofa under it, but Mario doesn’t get up to close it. He tells himself that he feels too tired to move, and that he doesn’t care about the upholstery. A tiny voice in his head tells him he’s afraid that he would see his own reflection in the glass.

A monster. The monster he really is. 

The monster who tricked an innocent boy into letting him…

He screams into the night. 

More than ever he feels like he deserves the curse. More than ever he truly understands it. Every bit of love he gets in return for being more human turns him back into the monster.

He lies in the darkness until sleep takes mercy on him.

He doesn’t leave his bedroom for two days. Sometimes he dares to crack the door open, only to listen to the sounds coming from the house, indicating Paulo’s presence. He should want him to leave now, and yet his presence still feels reassuring, gives him hope.

As if he has any hope.

Finally, he decides that he has to get out of the house before the walls suffocate him. He creeps out down the side staircase before the morning light, and takes refuge in the garden house. He has to laugh at himself. He’s made himself prisoner in his own house. Gave a stranger the freedom of it and forced himself into hiding, and he was even happy about it.

He can see the last rose bush from here. He looks at it every day, as if he could somehow stop the petals from falling off, the blooms from dying. But now, he has to get up and walk closer to the entrance of the garden house, nearly stepping outside. He can’t believe his eyes. The bush hasn’t changed. He’s counted the blooms and petals a thousandfold, and he is almost sure that not a single one has fallen since he last checked on it.

And he checked on it the morning before Paulo entered the house.

He retreats inside the garden house and sits on the bench next to a dozen of long-empty flower pots. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but doesn’t have time to think about it further, because a shadow moves outside the garden house. 

“Don’t come any closer!” Mario calls.

Paulo stops, but looks like he has no intention to leave. He has all of the advantages now, he’s got Mario trapped inside. Mario shudders at the mere thought of Paulo simply ignoring his request and stepping inside.

“Why are you avoiding me? What have I done to you?” Paulo asks. “I haven’t seen you since…”

Mario resists the urge to cover his ears not the hear the rest, but Paulo leaves the sentence unfinished.

“He was right,” Mario mumbles, and perhaps it’s not supposed to answer Paulo’s question, it’s more like he’s talking to himself. After all, he’s talked to himself more than he’s ever talked to anyone else. “I destroy everything pure, everything I touch.”

“But I wanted to!” Paulo calls. “I wanted you to touch me, I wanted it all, and you didn’t hurt me!” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mario says. “You don’t know who you’re talking to.”

“I know who I’m talking to,” Paulo says. ”You. I’m talking to someone who’s been more generous with me than anyone. Someone who’s been nicer to me than anyone. And whom I came to love despite never seeing him.”

Mario presses his fingers against his mouth to stop the loud wail threatening to push past his lips. 

“You said you wanted me to stay, but…” Paulo says and Mario hears him shuffle on his feet, like he’s not sure whether to take another step or not. “But I don’t know if I can do this. To have you so near and… not be able to even talk to you.”

“There’s no other way,” Mario whispers. 

“There’s always a way!” Paulo objects. “I don’t care about what you look like, and I don’t even care if I don’t ever get to see you. I’d be content to have just one part of you, but if I can’t have anything, I…”

Mario feels his heart beating faster in his chest than he remembers it ever beating. 

“I better leave,” Paulo says. “Tomorrow morning, if you no longer want me here.” 

“I do,” Mario manages brokenly.

“Then you have until tomorrow morning to convince me,” Paulo says, and Mario hears the too-long grass rustle under his feet until there’s no sound but the wind moving the branches of the rose bush, the clacking sound reminding him of time ticking by.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Paulo closes himself in the room with the fireplace, curling up in the armchair. His heart is beating madly in his chest. He threatened the Beast. If he didn’t feel so miserable, he’d laugh at the absurdity. 

He doesn’t feel so self-assured now. He doesn’t know what he will do if Mario does nothing to stop him from leaving. The last thing he wants is to leave, but he’s already had one door shut in his face and doesn’t know if he can take another. Leaving on his own terms would feel less like a loss… but more like running away.

When night falls, he waits in the armchair impatiently, straining his ears for every sound. But save for the incessant knocking of the branches downstairs, the house is quiet, almost like it’s indeed abandoned now. He almost can’t believe that he was so happy in this room just a few days before. It all feels like a dream now. There’s no one to talk to, no wine or food on the table… he’s been surviving on the apples and pears from the garden since Mario has decided to avoid him. For no apparent reason.

He waits, and waits, and waits.

The fire dies out. He sits there in the darkness for some time, like the darkness could attract Mario the way light attracts moths, but it doesn’t seem to have the desired effect. Finally, when he can no longer keep his eyes open, he collects the few items he had on him when he came here, and retires to one of the bedrooms in the house, the one he took to himself.

He can’t believe this adventure would come to such an abrupt end. 

He wakes up to the screech of the door, and in the next moment, a hand covers his eyes. Instead of startling as he should, he smiles.

“I’ve missed you,” he mumbles sleepily. 

“And I’ve missed you,” Mario whispers.

“Not my fault,” Paulo says, lips curling in a mischievous grin. 

“No,” Mario says quietly. “Nothing is your fault.”

Paulo settles more comfortably on the bed, eyes fluttering under Mario’s palm. “Your hand is going to hurt if you keep doing this all night,” he says.

But he understands Mario’s fear; the room isn’t nearly as dark as to hide things completely, lit by the moon shining through the window.

“I know,” Mario says. “But if I don’t do this, you’re going to run away.”

“You know that I’m not,” Paulo says. “But the scarf is on the chair.”

He hears Mario stretch towards the chair. Twisting out of his grip would be easy now, but Paulo has never been the one to play dirty tricks. He keeps his eyes obediently closed and lets Mario tie the scarf over his eyes.

“Now tell me,” he demands, scrambling to a sitting position. “Why are you avoiding me? If it’s not my fault…”

“It’s not,” Mario says. “But… What can I offer you, Paulo? This house that is soon going to fall on my head.”

“Why is it so hard for you to understand that it’s even more than I ask for?” Paulo whispers. “I don’t care about the house if you’re not in it.”

“It’s  _ just _ me. Nobody will ever set their foot in here,” Mario sighs, and runs his hand up and down Paulo’s arm, most likely absent-mindedly, but the touch still sends shivers down Paulo’s spine.

“ _ Just you _ is enough.”

“No, it’s not,” Mario says. “You are so young, full of life… you don’t deserve to live here alone with a monster…”

Paulo reaches for him blindly, and by some miracle manages to trap him in a half-embrace before Mario can slip away from him.

“What can I do to deserve it?” he whispers against Mario’s lips.

He feels Mario tense, and suddenly he thinks it funny, given that he’s the one who’s never kissed anyone. But he waits patiently, not moving an inch, until Mario closes the last thin veil of distance between them, and presses his lips against Paulo’s.

Although he doesn’t believe that Mario is a monster, there is definitely something animalistic in him, because the kiss is by no means chaste or tender, it almost feels like Paulo is Mario’s prey he finally caught. It’s deep and intense and it almost hurts. Or maybe it is caused by his other senses being heightened.

Mario pushes him on his back and settles over him. He kisses him again, this time more gently than before. There is no teeth, no bruising of Paulo’s lips. Paulo arches into him, and Mario makes a soft noise against his mouth.

“Is this really everything you want?” he whispers, caressing Paulo’s face right where the red silk meets his cheek. “Because I can’t give you more. I can’t even let you see me.”

The rational part of Paulo realizes that Mario is right, and that they can’t quite live like that, not for long. The other part, though, the one that thrives on kisses and touches, tells him that he would gladly blind himself if Mario asked him to.

“I want  _ you _ ,” Paulo says. “That’s all that matters.”

Mario shifts slightly, placing his knees between Paulo’s, and moves his hands along his body. This time, Paulo’s voice stays where it’s supposed to, and he responds to the caresses with gasps and cries. Somewhere between those kisses and touches, Mario manages to strip them both, and Paulo doesn’t quite know when it happened.

“No second thoughts?” he asks, hands wandering in no specific pattern.

Paulo shakes his head, squirming under his touch. He doesn’t quite know what to do, except for following his instincts and responding to his lover’s actions, but he lets Mario have everything he wants to have. He feels like would let him carve his heart out if he so desired, and it would still give him as much pleasure as this.

He has no idea how much time passes while they lay together in silence, broken only by their heavy breathing. To Paulo, it seems like time passes differently here, but it might only be the blindfold, robbing him of any indications, such as changing light or the color of the sky. But he doesn’t care, as long as Mario is there, not leaving him to his confusion this time.

“Is there nobody waiting for you?” Mario asks, fingers dancing on Paulo’s shoulder. “Home?”

“Waiting for me, I’m not sure,” Paulo says. “My parents would maybe prefer if I didn’t return. I’m the youngest of three brothers. The first brother will get the house, the second will get my father’s business… the third one should get married to someone with either a house or a business, but has nothing to offer to this someone… And you thought  _ you _ had nothing to offer  _ me _ .”

“Is this why you want to stay?” Mario chuckles. “Because I have a house?”

“You still call it a house?” Paulo asks, and yelps as a slap on his shoulder takes him by surprise.

Mario strokes his hair and neck gently. Behind the window, Paulo can hear the sleepy voices of the birds, slowly waking up in their safe nests in the garden. It must be almost morning.

“Do you believe me now that I don’t want to leave you?” he asks, catching Mario’s hand in his.

Mario shuffles closer to him and wraps his arms around him. Paulo wonders how he can feel so safe in the arms of someone who is possibly not entirely human.

“If you left me, I think I’d die,” Mario whispers. 

“I will never leave you,” Paulo says firmly. “I promise.”


	3. Gone

When Mario leaves the room with the fireplace the following night, Paulo curls up on the sofa that still holds the warmth of Mario’s body, and his eyes close on their own accord. 

It’s the first night in the house that he dreams.

He walks through the gate of his hometown, the guards not stopping him when they recognize him, and then he runs down the familiar streets. He knows he has to get home as soon as possible, but doesn’t know why.

His parents’ house is surrounded by people. He recognizes neighbors and family friends, all of them with grave faces. When he comes closer, he spots the priest and the town’s doctor. A feeling of dread creeps up his spine. Nobody says anything when he approaches them, they just give him sympathetic looks.

He enters the house, heart beating madly in his chest. His father and brothers are standing by the wall, talking to some neighbors. Paulo’s eyes search the room for his mother, but his heart sinks before he sees her. Because she would come to greet him, she always would. 

Candles are burning around the bed. Only then he realizes that everyone around is wearing black.

He wakes up drenched in cold sweat.

It’s already morning outside, the sun shining through the window. Paulo runs a hand through his damp hair and takes a deep breath. He tries to reason with himself, tell himself it was only a dream, but he can’t shake the terrible feeling of dread off.

He has to go home.

“Mario?” he calls, running out of the room. “Mario!”

No answer comes. He doesn’t know where Mario spends the days, or what he does until the darkness allows him to leave his shelter and join Paulo. He searches the garden and the house as much as he dares to, but doesn’t come across him.

Finally, he runs inside one of the rooms where he had seen a writing desk. He takes a piece of paper and blows the dust off it, then finds a pencil, blunt and not used for years, but it’s still enough to scribble a quick note. He folds the paper and leaves it in the room with the fireplace, on the small table next to the armchair.

He calls for Mario one last time, but when no answer comes, he runs out of the house. At the gate he turns back once more, searching the windows for any sign of Mario’s presence, but all of them are empty. 

With one last look at the rose bush, he starts towards the road that will take him home.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Mario waits for the true indigo darkness to fall before he dares to creep out of his room. He makes it halfway down the stairs when he realizes that something is not right.

The house is too quiet.

He knows all kinds of silence, and this is the silence of an empty house, the silence of loneliness, the one he’s the most familiar with.

There is no fire crackling in the fireplace, no footsteps, no voice, no breathing. Nothing. 

_ No. It can’t be. He can’t be gone. He promised me. _

Mario runs the rest of the way to Paulo’s bedroom, and opens the door, only to find the room empty. Paulo isn’t there, his things aren’t there. Mario feels his heart skip a beat. Even Paulo’s coat is gone. And he never wears the coat around here. 

He runs down the stairs to the hall, and then outside. There is no reason for Paulo to be outside at this hour, but he has to see for himself. He calls for him, screams for him, but only a raven croaks in response somewhere in the treetops.

_ He couldn’t have left me. He promised me. _

He trips over a root or a branch and falls, but his body feels no pain, every bit of the pain is concentrated in his heart. He drags himself back inside, palms and knees and heart bleeding.

The house feels even more quiet than before. He doesn’t know how he could have lived in this silence before. But he knows that if Paulo really left him, the silence will surely kill him before the curse will get the chance.

_ The curse. _

He places his bloody palms on the door he’s just closed, pushing it open again. There is enough moonlight in the garden to let him see, and he runs to the rose bush, his last hope. 

The bloom that was still red just two days ago is holding onto its last petal, which is already crumbling.

_ He’s gone. _

His knees hurt like seven devils when he walks up the stairs. When he reaches the top, he startles. There is fire crackling in the fireplace now. Mario limps across the hall.

There is a figure standing in the room with the fireplace, and for a moment, a sparkle of hope melts the icy crust of fear around his heart.

Then he comes closer, and realizes that it’s not Paulo.

It’s his worst nightmare.

The last time he saw the Sorcerer was the last time he was not this, a creature afraid of sunlight, hiding in the shadows, forever prisoner in his own house. He hasn’t seen him since, and thought him possibly dead, with only the curse as his legacy. But there he is, standing in front of Mario, not a day older, seemingly, watching him with dark eyes.

“Are you looking for something?” he asks with a sly smile.

“Where is he?” Mario asks, out of breath. “What have you done to him?”

“What have _ I _ done?” the Sorcerer asks. “Oh, you truly have a sense of humor. What have  _ you _ done, that sent the boy running home like mad?”

Mario feels his eyes sting.  _ He couldn’t have left me. _

“You did it again, didn’t you?” the Sorcerer asks. “Toyed with the boy’s feelings, just to get what you wanted.”

“No,” Mario whispers. “I love him.”

“Oh,” the Sorcerer smirks. “And does he love you?”

“Probably not,” Mario mumbles.

“Probably? You… aren’t sure?” the Sorcerer raises his brows, feigning surprise. “Who could ever love you? A monster like you? See, people run away from you and they’ve never even seen you!” He laughs at the hurt expression that must be glued to Mario’s face.

“He could,” Mario says. “Or at least I believed it.”

_ He promised me. _

“Oh, look at you!” the Sorcerer laughs. “Getting fed your own medicine. How does it feel, to be tossed aside like… a piece of crumpled paper?” There is indeed a piece of crumpled paper in the Sorcerer’s hand, and he throws it in the flames nonchalantly before stalking closer to Mario. “How does it feel to burn?”

Mario feels his legs give way under him, and he falls on the pelt in front of the fireplace. The Sorcerer looks down at him, almost like he is sorry for him. Like kicking him while he’s down is no fun anymore.

“Nobody will save you, Beast,” he says and walks to the door, giving Mario one last look of disgust. “You will die here, alone, with the last rose. And nobody in this world will miss you.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

_ Just a dream. It was just a dream. _

Paulo keeps repeating the words like a prayer, but they are never enough to stop his mind from racing. He should have been home. He should have returned much sooner. He should have never strayed from the road. 

If his mother is… if anything happened to his mother while he wasn’t there… he will never forgive himself.

He’s always been his mother’s darling, the last child, the one his father expected nothing from, the one his brothers protected, but also defended their rights from. He was supposed to get nothing from his father, so he got everything from his mother. And he never showed his gratefulness like he should have. Instead, he lusted after what his brothers had. 

It takes him more than a day to get to his hometown, as he doesn’t come across any carriage or wagon to ask for a ride. At least the weather is kind to him.

The gate opens just like in his dream, even the guards are the same. It’s enough to make him start running again.

There are no people around their house, but what if what happened in his dream was true? They would be surely gone by now. His mother would be already buried by now, and he’d have no chance to say goodbye.

When he pushes the door open, his heart is beating too fast and too hard.

“Mother?” he whispers. 

Unlike in the dream, he doesn’t find his mother on the bed, but sitting by the fire, wrapped in a woolen shawl. 

He hugs her so tight she lets out a surprised yelp. “You are back,” she says. “But… why were you running, dear? You’re out of breath.”

Paulo pulls away and looks at her. “I had a dream… I… I dreamt you were dead.”

His mother smiles. “Then I’ll surely live long, they say.”

“But you are sick!” Paulo objects.

“It’s just a cold, sweetheart,” she says. “The terrible stormy season again… it’s been raining for days. But what about you? What about…”

Paulo shakes his head before she can speak of the girl, before she can say her name. She’s so far away now that it looks like barely a dream. He can’t believe that he wanted to marry her. Can’t believe he thought that he loved her.

His mother sighs, but then lays a comforting hand on his cheek. “It’s not the end of the days,” she says. “And she’s not the only girl in the world.” 

“No, I…” Paulo says and runs a hand over his face. “I need to tell you something. When I was going back, there was a storm, and I needed to hide somewhere, and I came across this house with a large garden. I thought it was abandoned, it looked empty, so I walked in and hid there, but… it wasn’t abandoned.”

She keeps looking at him with growing inquietude, and when he pauses, she grabs his hand. “The Beast’s house,” she whispers. “You were in the Beast’s house, weren’t you?”

Paulo nods and bites his lips, but his mother is already on her feet, running her hands over his shoulders like she wants to make sure there’s no piece of him missing. “I should have warned you,” she whispers. “Did it hurt you? How did you…”

“No,” Paulo interrupts her. “Ma… the Beast is not evil. He would never hurt me.”

It seems to him that his mother isn’t even listening to him. The door creaks and his two brothers walk in, stopping in their tracks when they see him.

“Hey,” his brother Gustavo says. “Where have you been for so long? Courting your beautiful bride-to-be?”

Paulo wants to say that there is no bride-to-be, but his mother is quicker.

“He was in the Beast’s house.”

“In the Beast’s house?” Gustavo frowns. “I thought they were just stories. So that children don’t trespass, you know.”

“Of course not,” his mother says. “Although I apparently should have told Paulo the story as well. How could it even cross your mind… It would have been wrong even if it was a sunny garden in the middle of a summer day, but… a house like that?”

“I needed to hide from the storm,” Paulo says. “And you don’t understand, the Beast is no monster from your stories! He’s nice and gentle… just… really sad.”

His mother looks concerned now. “Paulo, dear, you don’t know what you’re saying!”

“Leave him alone, mamá,” his other brother finally says. “Who knows who he met there… if he actually met anyone. We all know our little Paulo is a dreamer, don’t we?”

Paulo gives up on persuading them. Maybe it’s better if they don’t know. They wouldn’t understand it anyway.


	4. The Curse

When he enters the only tavern in town, a group of his old companions gather around him. They are boys he used to play with as a child, but he no longer hangs out with them. Some of them are already married, most of them have a job. Whenever he looks at them, he sees who he should be, but isn’t.

“Hey, so you met the Beast?” one of them asks.

Great. His brothers obviously couldn’t keep the story to themselves. He gives up on trying to get to a quiet corner. “Yeah.”

The men look impressed. “Wow, it didn’t eat you!”

Paulo wants to say that the Beast… Mario… eats fruit and cheese, not people, but nobody seems to be interested.

“God, is it really as ugly as everyone says?” one of them asks.

“I don’t know,” Paulo says gingerly. “I didn’t actually see him.”

“Good for you, man. I wouldn’t want it to haunt my dreams.”

“It’s a curse, they say,” another one says, motioning for the serving girl to serve them some beer. “Everyone in his family is born ugly as fuck, like… half human, half animal. He was born that way.”

“No, he wasn’t!” his friend says. “Someone cursed him because he was greedy as fuck.”

“No, because he killed a unicorn!”

“Because he refused to marry the Sorcerer’s son,” an old man sitting by the fire murmurs and spits on the floor. “Unicorn! You young lot have nothing in your stupid heads.”

“The Sorcerer?” Paulo asks, intrigued, leaving his companions and pushing his chair nearer to the fire.

“Yes, I’m telling you,” the man says, toying with his pipe. “The Sorcerer had a son, a beautiful young man, who fell in love with the Beast… well, the man he was before he became the Beast.”

“What happened then?” 

“Oh, what happened then…” the man shrugs. “After he took his virtue, I suppose he got bored of him, whatever. You know the rich, they get bored easily. It broke the young man’s heart, and he went crying to his father the Sorcerer.”

_ I destroy everything pure, everything I touch. _

“That’s what he was talking about,” Paulo whispers. 

“The Sorcerer went to the Beast’s house, and asked him to marry his son. And the Beast laughed in his face.”

“So the Sorcerer cursed him,” Paulo says.

“No, not then,” the man says. “But upon returning home, the Sorcerer found that his son had taken his own life.”

Paulo holds his breath. 

“There was no saving what was gone, but there was still revenge,” the man continues. “So he cursed him. Cursed him to live as the monster he was, as ugly on the outside as he was inside, so that no one would fall in love with him again.”

“But… forever?” Paulo asks, ignoring his companions who are now calling him a fool that still believes in fairytales. 

“No, not forever,” the man says, stuffing his pipe with another ball of tobacco. “Until the last rose dies. Every day the Beast spends alone, unloved, the roses in his garden wither, until the last one will die, and he with it.”

Paulo stares at him with eyes wide open. Then he gets up so quickly he overturns the chair. “I have to go,” he says. 

The man looks at him and frowns. “Where to?”

“Back.”

“Back where?”

“Back to him,” Paulo says. “Before the last rose dies.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

The petals fall one by one, but Mario doesn’t go to check on the roses anymore. 

He had plenty of time to prepare for his imminent death, he knew he would die alone, and somehow he became reconciled with the idea.

But why, why did Paulo had to come into his life just when it was about to end, and sparkle the hope inside him, only to take it away from him again?

He twists and turns it all in his head until he can’t think anymore, until his head hurts to the point of it being nauseating. He doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, because it’s better not to give in to his nightmares that are the only thing worse than his conscious thoughts.

Then the hallucinations start.

Sometimes, he hears music from the hall downstairs, chattering and laughter, but when he comes down, the hall is dark and empty. He hears the steps of servants on the corridors and the clattering of pots in the kitchen, but nobody is ever there. He can smell the aroma of roses coming through the window, so strong that it can’t come from the few pitiful blooms. 

And then, he is there. Standing by the window, looking just like Mario remembers him, only his face looks like it somehow turned to stone, a marble statue. His features are harder and not a single muscle moves in his face.

“Cristiano,” Mario whispers. 

Something in the very back of his mind tells him he’s not real, but Mario still tries to scramble out of the bed and reach him.

“Forgive me,” he says.

Cristiano doesn’t. He disappears as soon as Mario reaches out to touch him.

 

~ ~ ~ 

 

It starts raining as soon as Paulo leaves the town, and he’s soaked through in minutes, but he couldn’t care less. The silk coat is soon so heavy that he feels like it’s slowing him down, and he takes it off, drops it in the middle of the road.

He runs until he can’t run anymore, and then walks slowly, but doesn’t stray from his path until the night falls. He has to stop eventually, because he can’t see where he’s going, and falling off some rock isn’t what he needs now. With no inn or house in sight, he finds a hay-rack in the woods, and figures that there will be no better bed than this.

He wakes up in the morning, shivering, with pain in his joints, but he jumps to his feet and gets back on the road. His clothes didn’t have time to dry, and it doesn’t quite matter, because the rain is still pouring down on him.

The road seems endless, and his body is moving too slowly, almost like he’s walking through deep water. He’s hungry, cold and tired. He possibly has a fever, too.

He comes across a wagon going in the direction of the bigger city in the North, and the merchant agrees to give him a ride. Huddled between the packed rolls of tissue and wool, covered by waxed canvas sheltering both the goods and Paulo from the rain, Paulo falls asleep and only wakes up when the merchant shakes him awake, having arrived at the crossroads. 

“You could still go down this road,” Paulo tells him. “It’s even shorter that way.” 

“I’m not going any closer to that village,” the merchant says. “I don’t want anything to eat me.”

Paulo knows well what he means, but doesn’t have the strength to explain anything to him. He climbs down the carriage and thanks the merchant, watching the wagon disappear behind the turn. 

His legs feel wobbly, like the ground is moving under his feet, creating mounds and holes where there shouldn’t be any. He has to stop every few steps and catch his breath.

When he reaches the house, the sun is setting. He grips the metal bars of the gate and leans over it. The gate swings open and he almost falls inside. As he tries to find his footing again, his legs feel even more wobbly than before. He has to scramble up, gripping the bars for support.

He’s too afraid to look at the rose bush. All he knows is that it’s still there, but who knows what counts, the bush or the blooms?

The way from the gate seems endless to him. Breathing is more difficult, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of fear or sickness. He opens the front door and enters the house.

There are bloody imprints on the door, and Paulo feels his heart breaking.

_ Please, don’t be dead.  _

“I’m here!” he shouts into the void of the great hall, his voice returning to him multiple times. “I’m here! I’m sorry!” 

Nobody answers, and Paulo wants to run up the stairs, because he has to see Mario, and if Mario is really dead, he still wants to see at least his body, but his legs refuse to obey him anymore. 

“Please, don’t be dead,” he hears himself whisper as darkness clouds his mind, his knees hitting the tiled floor. “I love you.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

It takes a while before Mario musters up the courage to creep down the stairs. He doesn’t trust his mind anymore, and isn’t quite ready to see he was once more hearing a voice that wasn’t real.

The house is quiet again by the time he gets to the first floor. His mind is screaming at him that he was hallucinating, but the part of him, that stupid part of him that always keeps a sparkle of hope, makes him head to the staircase, telling him to make sure.

He finds Paulo curled up under the stairs, his upper body leaning on the intricate designs of the railing.

“Paulo!” he breathes out and runs down the stairs.

Paulo is a rag doll in his arms, body burning so much that his previously surely soaked shirt is barely damp. When Mario picks him up, his head lolls towards Mario’s chest. He lets out a pained sound, fingers trying to get a grip on the front of Mario’s shirt. 

“Easy, easy,” Mario chokes out, heart swelling from both joy and worry.

It would be easier to just take Paulo to the bedroom he chose previously, or any room with a sofa, but Mario doesn’t trust the house to protect him anymore. He carries him all the way up to the third floor, and kicks the door of his room shut before he lays Paulo on his own bed, and then latches the door just in case. 

Paulo’s forehead feels hot like a rock that was sitting in direct sun all day, and his lips are cracked. Mario takes off his drenched clothes and tucks him under two blankets. Then he sits on the edge of the bed and pushes back Paulo’s damp hair.

Just then, only for a second, Paulo opens his eyes and looks at him.


	5. The Rose

When Paulo wakes up, the room smells of spices, wine and herbs. There is a damp cloth on his forehead and a cup of mulled wine on the table next to the bed, apparently freshly boiled. When he shuffles under the covers, there is an abrupt moment in the corner of the room. With nowhere to run and no shadows to hide him, Mario at least turns his back to Paulo.

“No need to hide anymore,” Paulo says. “I’ve already seen you.”

He sounds more confident than he really is. He does remember seeing a face, but doesn’t know if it was real. It could have been his feverish mind playing tricks on him, it could have been a dream. But somehow he knows it was neither. The face was real. And it didn’t belong to a monster. Maybe Mario isn’t the epitome of beauty, maybe nobody would call him  _beautiful_ , but he’s no animal, no scaled serpent, has no beak or claws, no scars.

Mario slowly turns to him. Paulo looks at him and smiles, reaching out for him.

“You’re not a monster,” he says.

“I am.”

“No, not to me,” Paulo says. “I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror. But I don’t think it’s the same face I see.”

Mario just stares at him. Paulo can see the confusion in his eyes, as he traces his face with his fingers, the face Mario can’t bear to look at himself. When he leans in and kisses him, Mario’s eyes fill with tears.

“How?” he chokes out. “How are you not… seeing it?”

“All I see is you,” Paulo says, wiping his tears. “And there’s nothing wrong with you. Quite the contrary.”

“Then why did you run away?” Mario asks, pressing the cup with mulled wine in Paulo’s hands, as it’s not scalding anymore.

Paulo blinks in confusion. “I had to go home, I had a dream my mother was dead… well, she merely had a cold, I don’t know why my head was messing with me… But I wrote it in the note.”

“What note?”

“I left you a note on the table, in the room with the fireplace,” Paulo says, sipping on the wine. It’s strong and sweet, and warms him up from the inside.

Mario frowns. Then he hides his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“For?” Paulo asks, putting the empty cup on the table.

“Not trusting you. I… I thought you left me.”

“But I told you I would never,” Paulo says and grabs his hand. “I just needed to see that my mother was all right.”

“And she let you come back to me?” Mario smiles bitterly. “To the Beast?”

“I had to come back,” Paulo says. “To save you. As long as I’m here, you won’t die, is that right? Is that the curse? The roses won’t wither, you won’t die, everything will be fine…”

Mario smiles indulgently. Paulo realizes that he’s babbling uncontrollably, and blames it on the wine. Mario tucks him back under the covers and looks at him. “But that’s what I don’t want,” he whispers. “I don’t want you to be what I am. A prisoner in this house. That is the true curse, Paulo. And I don’t want you to share its burden with me.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

“Was it true, the story of how you came to your curse?” Paulo asks, running his fingers through Mario’s hair.

“Yes,” Mario whispers.

“All of it? You really got bored of the Sorcerer’s son?”

“Bored… or scared, maybe. I didn’t quite know what I wanted then. Maybe I got scared of… the commitment, the loss of freedom. But bored, yes, of the boy’s devotion, of him not aspiring to anything else but being with me, here, forever. I was scared and bored of everything the curse made me crave then.”

“And me?” Paulo looks at him. “Won’t you get bored of me?”

“You’ll sooner get bored of  _me_ ,” Mario smiles sadly. “A boring old hermit that hates himself.”

“You’re not boring,” Paulo laughs. “Nor old. The last two… are probably true, but we can change that.”

“I still don’t understand,” Mario sighs. “How come you don’t see me as… as I see myself?”

Paulo shrugs. “Could it be the curse?” he asks. “Your curse? What if your curse is truly only yours?”

Mario shakes his head. “Why would everyone fear me, then?”

“What if people see you as they want to see you? You see yourself as a monster because you think you  _are_ a monster. And so do they. But me…”

“So you might not see my true face after all. What if you just want to see me beautiful?” Mario asks.

“I don’t,” Paulo shakes his head. “I want to see you as you truly are. That was all I wished for. Even when I didn’t know… I only wanted to know you, even if you were a three-headed monster, I would have loved you all the same.”

“You are a blessing,” Mario murmurs against Paulo’s neck.

“But how can the curse be broken?” Paulo asks, not paying attention to him nuzzling and kissing his jaw.

“It can’t,” Mario says.

“Every curse can be broken,” Paulo says resolutely. “I’ve read my stories.”

“They are stories,” Mario whispers. “But this is real.”

“You are also just a story to some people,” Paulo says. “But you are real.”

Mario definitely gives up on persuading him to let go of planning his salvation, and pulls back.

“I had an old nanny, she was still alive when the Sorcerer cursed me,” he says. “She said if roses could kill me, they could also save me.”

“Roses?” Paulo looks at him.

“I will only live as long as the last rose lives,” Mario reminds him. “Unless the curse is broken.”

“But then… it’s easy!” Paulo says and throws the blanket aside, proceeding to look for his clothes.

“What are you doing?” Mario asks, blinking confusedly.

“I know how to break the curse,” Paulo says, pulling the shirt over his head and rushing down the stairs, Mario in tow.

“How?” Mario asks when he finally catches up with him, out in the garden. The sunlight is stinging his eyes as he’s not used to daylight.

“We have to plant another rose,” Paulo explains like it’s the most obvious thing. “I’ll bring a rose from my hometown, we’ll plant it and then we’ll have enough cuttings to bring the garden back to life. I know a couple things about roses, trust me. My hometown gardens have plenty of them, and the late ones are still blooming.”

Mario looks at him skeptically, but Paulo is looking over the dead garden like he can already see the blooming bushes around the house, similar to those on the old painting.

“Don’t,” Mario whispers. “Please. I don’t want you to go, I don’t want to die here alone.”

“But you won’t!” Paulo says, eyes shining. “I’ll come back before the time is up, and we’ll plant the rose and save you!”

“What if you don’t?”

“I will. See, you still have enough time,” he says, pointing at the rose bush. “Days. My hometown isn’t so far, I can be back in three days.”

Realizing that he can’t talk him out of it, Mario sighs deeply. “Wait here,” he says and goes back inside.

He returns with a warm coat and rolled-up blanket, handing both to Paulo. “I might die here, but you don’t have to,” he says.

“Nobody will die,” Paulo says firmly. “Maybe the Sorcerer, if I ever get my hands on him.”

Mario chuckles humorlessly.  

“Wait… you said your nanny was still alive when he cursed you,” Paulo says, frowning. “Didn’t she see you then?”

“No,” Mario smirks. “She was, very conveniently, already blind.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

With no rain getting the roads muddy and no fever slowing him down, it takes Paulo less than a day to get back to his hometown this time. It’s late afternoon, and that means he has to do the job quickly. He knows that he has to manage to slip through the gates before they close for the night, so that he can be back on the road and profit from the rests of light, and then get going with the first rays. Staying all night would cost him more time than he maybe has.

He takes a turn that leads in the very opposite direction of his home, to the villas of the richer citizens. They are known for their opulent gardens, and he wants to take the easiest way, rather than waste his time looking for a late blooming rose in the tiny ones that belong to the houses in his street.

The sun is setting when he finds what he’s looking for. A rose bush still blooming red, leaves fresh and green, no spots that would indicate mildew or rot or any other disease. Obviously the plant is being taken good care of. No wonder, the rich can afford professional gardeners. He’s thought of becoming one, and it was the closest he’s ever come to knowing what he would like to do with his life… until he met Mario and realized that there was only one garden he was interested in.

He takes a quick look around to make sure the street is empty, and then hops over the low, white-painted fence.

The garden smells of autumn, overripe pears and chrysanthemums, and it’s picture perfect, but suddenly it has no charm for Paulo. He would never change it for the wild beauty of Mario’s garden, would never change the angel statues for the gargoyles, the white gazebo for the decrepit summer house.  

Stalking closer to the rose bush, he pulls out a pocket knife, looking for the best branch to cut. He picks the healthiest looking, topped with three rosebuds. He carefully cuts it off and slipping the knife back in his pocket, hides it under his coat.

When he turns around, he comes face to face with the owner of the garden, and only now realizes whose garden this is. The garden belongs to no one else than the major of the town. He has just committed the crime of trespassing and theft in the major’s garden.

Before he can think of a plausible explanation of his deed, or at least an argument that would excuse it, the major is already screaming for the guards, and they are never far in this part of the city. It’s always easier to patrol the streets where crimes are less likely to be committed.

“No, wait… you don’t understand!” Paulo blurts out just as two guards run through the gate. “I… I need the rose to take it to the Beast’s house to break the curse!”

“Save your stories for the judge,” the major says, most likely not even paying attention to what Paulo is saying, and gestures to the guards.

“No, I…” Paulo starts again, but the guards grab his arms and the rose falls from underneath his coat, landing at his feet.

“Is this what he stole?” one of the guards asks incredulously.

“What does it matter what he stole?” the major snaps. “He stole it from my garden! Take him to the judge immediately!”

“But… the judge is visiting the priest today, sir,” the guard blurts out. “They must be having dinner now, should we…”

“Well, then take him to prison until he comes back,” the major says. “I surely don’t want to ruin their dinner because of a filthy little thief.”  

“Wait!” Paulo cries out as the guards start to drag him out in the street. “I need that rose, I need to take it to the Beast’s mansion to break the curse, you don’t understand, I have to go back, now!”

“Boy, you’re not going anywhere, not until the judge says that you can,” the guard on his left says. “And I really doubt that he will let you go. Trespassing is a serious crime.”


	6. Prisons

The judge is an old man who would rather be taking a nap after he spent a pleasant evening at the priest’s house. Everyone wants to be friends with the priest, and with God by proxy, so they always bring him the best they have. The young goose was truly exquisite and he hoped he could go right to bed after he’d come back, but the major insisted on him dealing with the offender he caught in his garden. The judge feels like he’s getting too old for this. There aren’t that many offenders in the town, and he gets to spend most of his time taking care of his garden and reading books about how to best take care of gardens, but when there is crime, it always happens at the most inappropriate of times. He’s asked many times for a new judge to be sent in his place, but it seems like not too many judges wish to come to this God-forgotten little town. Apparently, he will have to die first.

“Paulo,” he sighs, pushing the golden-rimmed glasses on his nose. “You were always a good boy. What’s gotten into you?”

“Please,” Paulo blurts out and wants to throw himself on the judge, only the guards’ grip on his arms stopping him. “Please, you don’t understand… I need that rose, and I need to take it to the Beast’s house to break the curse!”

The judge spreads his arms and turns to the guards. “What’s wrong with the boy?” he asks. “Is there a fever raging in the prison?”

“No, Your Honor,” the guard says. “He’s been screaming this nonsense since we caught him.”

“Well, we’ll let him scream it on the pillory for two hours,” the judge sighs. “Maybe it will cure him.”

Paulo looks at him in disbelief. “But… I need to…”

“Son, it is two hours because I know you as an honest boy, and it’s your first offense. It would be five, were you anyone else. After that, you’re free to go wherever you wish to, with a rose or an oak tree, for all I care. Given you don’t steal it.” He turns to the guards again. “Tomorrow morning. Take him back to prison now.”

Paulo gasps. “What? Tomorrow? No, I need to… Can’t we do it now?”

“Paulo…” the judge starts.

“Do it now! Take me to the pillory now! Please!”

“Everyone is sleeping now, stupid!” one of the guards chuckles. “It would kind of defeat the purpose.”

“Exactly,” the judge mumbles. “Everyone is sleeping, except me, because I’m still dealing with this nonsense, and now I’ve had enough.”

He waves his hand dismissively and scribbles something in his books. “Beast,” he mumbles. “Poor boy.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

“Are you telling me that he left you  _twice_?” The Sorcerer laughs heartily, pacing around Mario’s garden. “You’re exceeding my expectations.”

“He wants to save me,” Mario says.

“Touching, very touching,” the Sorcerer smirks. “The boy really surprises me. I didn’t expect anyone wanting to save your miserable life. Especially after learning the truth.”

He looks at the rose bush with certain satisfaction. The last flower is barely holding onto its last two petals.

“Too bad he got it all wrong,” the Sorcerer sighs. “As if simply planting a new rose could be enough to save you. Underestimating me like this, I should be offended.”

Mario feels like his words are nothing more but buzzing in his ears, like a fly is circling around his head. He’s desperately holding onto the last remnants of hope. He doesn’t believe planting a new rose could save him either. All he wants is for Paulo to be there, to see him one last time before the final petal falls.

“Why didn’t you tell him?” the Sorcerer asks, stalking closer to him. “Why didn’t you tell him there was really a way to save you, eh? The  _true_ way? Not your nanny’s stupid story?”

“Maybe I don’t want to be saved,” Mario mumbles.

The Sorcerer tuts.

“Not at this cost!” Mario shouts. “My life is not worth anyone spilling their blood for me. I may have thought otherwise before… I was a fool.”

“Oh,” the Sorcerer says with feigned compassion. “Too bad that you realized it  _now_. If you had realized it  _then_ , we wouldn’t be here. Also, too bad that the folk in the town don’t share this opinion of yours.”

“What do you mean?” Mario asks, worry seeping through his voice, no matter how much he doesn’t want to show the Sorcerer that he cares so deeply about Paulo.

The Sorcerer laughs. “I often forget that you can’t see things the way I do… nor hear the news. Well, your savior tried to steal a rose to plant it in your garden. The owner of the garden wasn’t happy. They are quite sensitive when it comes to trespassing in that town. I believe the judge sentenced him to two hours on the pillory, or so I’ve heard, tomorrow morning,” he says, playing with the dead branches of the bush. “It’s an exemplary punishment, of course. But you never know what idea they get in their head, primitive peasants. One might feel like throwing a stone any time…”

Mario keeps looking at him like he’s waiting for any sign that would indicate it’s just another lie, but the Sorcerer looks too gleeful, too satisfied with how the things are turning out. Mario turns around briskly, not paying any more attention to him.

“Where are you going?” he hears behind him.

“Where do you think I’m going?” Mario says, running inside the house to grab at least a coat. “To stop this!”

The Sorcerer folds his arms. “Aren’t you afraid that you will scare the whole town?”

“No,” Mario says and looks at him. “I very much hope that I will do just that!”

“Oh, so you want to get yourself killed as well?”

“Your curse will probably kill me before they’ll get the chance, remember?” Mario smirks. “But at least I won’t die here, alone, and as a coward.”

Running inside his room, he throws a cape over his shoulders and after a moment of hesitating, grabs a pouch with money and his belt with a dagger on in. Then he runs down the side staircase and out the gate, leaving the stunned Sorcerer behind.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Paulo doesn’t sleep for a minute, despite the prison being generous enough to provide him with a cot and even a blanket. He wails desperately, until someone from the neighboring cell yells at him to shut up. He resolves to quiet sobbing after that, until taking even the smallest of breaths hurts and he has no more tears to cry.

He can hear the gates opening with the first light, and he throws himself against the window like the bars could break if he shakes them desperately enough, but then his reason tells him it’s too late anyway. He slides down the cold wall and curls up in the corner, sobbing miserably. His neighbor is apparently already up, because they don’t mind it this time.

He is still whimpering quietly in the corner when the guards come for him. The older one smiles sympathetically.

“Come on, we’re not taking you to the swordsman, eh?” he says and pats him on the shoulder. “Nobody’s died on the pillory… or not that I’ve heard about it at least.”

“Right now, I don’t really care anymore,” Paulo says.

Maybe chopping his head off would be kinder.

When they walk out, the bells announcing the end of the morning mass ring. A new stream of tears falls from his eyes.

The guards apparently didn’t keep the story to themselves, because among the jeers and laughter of the crowd slowly gathering on the square, he hears mentions of roses and the Beast almost as often as he hears himself being called a fool.

Someone pushes a flower crown made of roses on his head. He feels the thorns sink in his forehead, but the pain never reaches where it should. He can’t quite feel his body, nor see where he’s going, and he doesn’t think that he would be able to walk on his own, if it weren’t for the guards’ grip on his arms.  

He stops when they tell him to, looks up to the wooden post and sniffles. This is the thing he feared the most all his life, and now he feels nothing. He raises his hands obediently and lets the guards close the iron rings around them, and he looks down at the crowd like they mean nothing. He doesn’t even feel like explaining anything to them, even if it could stop the jeering and curses and an occasional rose being thrown at him like it’s worth nothing. They would never understand.

The guards remain standing near, to make sure the crowd doesn’t get too violent. After all, the punishment is only exemplary, and he suspects the old judge specifically gave them this order. Like saving Paulo’s life made any sense now.


	7. Mirrors

The moon is shining bright and the stars blink like thousands of pairs of eyes are watching him. If this is the end, it’s a beautiful night to die.

Mario has no idea when the final petal will fall, nor what will happen then. Will he just drop dead in the middle of the road? Crumble to dust? Evaporate? The Sorcerer never specified how he was to die, and he never asked.

But he doesn’t die before he reaches the village, the one he used to know so well in his youth, the place from which the rumors and legends spread like wildfire after the Sorcerer cursed him. The village people really turned the world against themselves, though. Nobody would approach the village now, the merchants would pick different roads if they could. The village inn was almost always empty.

Not tonight, though.

He can see the inn lights shining into the night, and for a moment he wants to quickly pass it by and hope no drunkards are loitering around. But then he sees the horse hastily tied to a beam, like its owner has just gone inside for a drink, or to ask for free rooms.

He suddenly finds it funny that he’s never stolen anything in his life, and now it may be the last thing he will do.

He grabs the reins and gets into the saddle, surprised at the swiftness he still does it with. He hasn’t ridden a horse in so many years. He hasn’t done so many things for years, and now it feels like his final hours or minutes want to give him all the freedom the curse took from him. A true swansong.

He has to slow down while passing through the forest, as there are places the moonlight can’t reach, and sometimes the horse is leading him instead of Mario being in control, but at this point, he just lets things happen. It’s strangely liberating, not to fight anymore.

He reaches the gates when the sun is already quite high, having probably taken a longer road than he should, but he’s never been to Paulo’s hometown and since he never mentioned its name, he could only guess which town he meant. He hopes to God that he guessed right. He leaves the horse at the gates just because the streets seem to be quite narrow, and he will most likely reach the square soon enough anyway. The town is smaller than he expected.  _Too small for someone with Paulo’s fire_ , he thinks,  _too narrow for his mind._

The streets take him to the square surely enough, all he has to do is follow the people rushing down them, laughing and mentioning him without knowing he’s passing them by. Whether they pay him any attention or not, he doesn’t know. The cape is shielding him from their looks and he only stares forward, following the voices growing louder with every step he takes towards the square.

When he finally sees Paulo, he doesn’t know if the feeling threatening to rip his heart apart is immense joy or rage. It might as well be both, since the two became inseparable friends from the day he met him. All the joy Paulo’s existence gives him, and all the rage he feels because of what he is himself.

Paulo’s face looks almost serene and peaceful, save for the salty streams running down his cheeks from underneath his closed eyelids. The crown of slowly withering wild roses only adds to the look of innocence that’s almost scared Mario away once. But it’s not only him. Even the crowd is more or less silent now, like they’ve lost interest and courage face to face with such resignation, or they’ve sensed that something was going on here, something much bigger than they could ever comprehend.

Finally, Mario breaks the strange magic that has him and the others trapped. “Paulo!” he calls.

Paulo opens his eyes slowly and searches in the crowd for a while, and Mario’s heart aches because he’s never seen his eyes look so dim. It’s almost like Paulo is the one dying here. But when his eyes finally find Mario, the sparkle of life returns to them immediately.

“Mario?” he whispers.

Mario pushes his way through, making way towards the post with determination.

“Hold up, hold up,” the guard standing between Paulo and the crowd grumbles, extending his arm to block Mario’s path. “The little thief’s still got half an hour.”

Mario reaches under his cape and pulls out a dagger, putting it to the guard’s neck before he has time to blink. “You, on the contrary, have less than half a minute if you don’t let him go now,” he growls. The blade glints in the sunlight, and it’s by no means an old rusty thing. It could probably slice the guard’s head off, if Mario felt that way.

The guard looks positively terrified, and Mario isn’t even surprised, mostly because he never expected anything else from the people that would see him.

“Easy, man,” the other guard says, careful not to startle Mario as he probably doesn’t want his hand to accidentally slip and cut his friend’s throat. “Why get in trouble for a delirious fool?”

“Careful who you call a fool,” Mario says.

“What else would you call someone who steals a rose for the Beast, and lets the whole town laugh at him for something that doesn’t even exist?” the guard laughs.

“The only fools here are you,” Mario says. “I am the Beast. Are you not afraid I’ll eat you?”

If the crowd was mostly silent before, now it seems to Mario that he’s gone deaf. He could hear a pin drop in the square.

Then like magic, the crowd dissipates. Some walk away quickly, some discreetly slip away to the narrow alleys around the square. Some run away shamelessly, dragging their children along. Mario feared this moment since the Sorcerer cursed him, and now he almost wants to laugh.

The last person to stay on the now empty square is the guard Mario is holding at daggerpoint. Even his friend turned his back on him, preferring to save himself from the bloodthirsty monster he believed Mario to be.

“Let him go now,” Mario says quietly. “I believe this show is already over.”

The guard walks up to the pillory on shaking legs, shooting worried glances over his shoulder to see what Mario is doing. But Mario only stands there with the dagger still drawn, watching him intently. The guard unlocks the irons and steps back quickly, almost like he’s afraid of Paulo as well now.

“Run now,” Mario says, putting the dagger back. The guard doesn’t waste a moment to get away.

Paulo takes a small step towards him. Mario reaches out to him hesitantly, like he isn’t sure if he shouldn’t just leave him alone. He let him go and suffer for nothing, and even now has nothing to give him in return.

But Paulo doesn’t look like he is angry with him at all. He looks as happy as he possibly can, with the exhaustion showing in his eyes and moves that lack the swiftness and grace Mario remembers. He lays both hands on the velvet of Mario’s cape and sighs with relief when Mario takes firm hold of his waist and sits him on the stone steps.

Mario carefully takes off the flower crown, untangling the stems from his hair and gently lifting it where the thorns ripped the skin.

“You shouldn’t have done this,” Paulo whispers. “You took their fun from them, they’ll never forgive you that.”

“I would have never forgiven myself if I didn’t,” Mario says. “I should have never let you go. My life isn’t worth a single minute of your suffering.”

“But… you’re… how are you… still alive?” Paulo whispers. “The petals must have fallen by now.”

Mario frowns, then looks at the droplets of blood on Paulo’s forehead, and at the flower crown he’s holding, staining his fingers red.

“Roses,” he whispers. “Roses could save me.”

“But how?” Paulo asks. “I didn’t plant a new one, I…”

“No,” Mario shakes his head. “It wasn’t the rose that could save me. It was your blood. That was the curse, that was the Sorcerer’s revenge. I was cursed because someone spilled their blood for me, and only someone spilling their blood for me again could save me. Because who would ever do it for a monster?”

Paulo tilts his head so that he can see Mario’s eyes under the cape. “You knew it all along?” he asks.

“Yes,” Mario admits.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to do anything stupid,” Mario sighs. “Which you did anyway.”

Paulo’s face lights up. “But I saved you, then!” he says. “The curse was broken, I saved you!”

“I don’t know,” Mario whispers. “I… I never know what the Sorcerer means, I…”

Mario doesn’t know why he feels the way he does. Maybe he thought that if the curse would ever be broken, it would happen differently. That he would feel it somehow.  _It couldn’t just happen without me even realizing it._   _There’s a catch, there’s always a catch in everything the Sorcerer does…_

But Paulo’s smile grows wider with every passing second. “Mario!” he says and pulls the hood off. “You’re free now! You don’t have to hide anymore!”

“Even if it’s true…” Mario says and pushes Paulo’s hands away, pulling the hood over his head again. “We don’t really want the folk to know, do we? Since me being the scary Beast is what’s kept them away from us so far.”

“True,” Paulo nods. “We should get out of here before they gather enough courage to get out from underneath their beds.”

“We…” Mario repeats.

“You didn’t think I’d stay here without you, did you?” Paulo frowns. “I didn’t break the curse to leave you.”

“But… your family…” Mario says, drinking in the fire and devotion that is burning in Paulo’s eyes again. “Don’t you want to at least…”

“No goodbyes I would like to say right now,” Paulo shakes his head. “And I bet they won’t want to hear anything about me for a long time.”

The horse is still waiting at the gate, probably because the guards abandoned their posts before they could do anything about it. Mario grabs the reins and turns to Paulo, who is watching him incredulously.

“Where did you get a horse?” he asks.

“I stole it,” Mario says.

Paulo laughs all the way through the forest.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Paulo can smell the roses from afar. The scent is unique, unlike any he knew before he entered Mario’s garden, but this time, it’s so strong they can smell it before they even see the house.

And when the house finally comes into view, it’s not the house Paulo remembers. The facade is light ochre, not the dark, grayish color he remembers, and the garden is green and full of life, water singing in the fountains and birds singing in the tree branches. But most importantly, there are roses blooming all around the house. He has seen this scene once. In the picture he found in the library.

“See? Roses!” he laughs, pushing the gate open and running towards the blooming bushes like a child. When Mario walks up to him, Paulo holds up a finger with a droplet of blood on the tip. “Just in case,” he says, slipping the finger between his lips, savoring the coppery taste on his tongue.

Mario just stands at the fountain, now full of water, looking around apprehensively.

“You don’t believe it, do you?” Paulo asks. “That the curse is broken.”

“Right now, I don’t even believe that you are real,” Mario says. “Maybe I’m already dead and you are just a dream?”

“The dead don’t dream,” Paulo says. “And I’m real. Come.”

He drags Mario behind him, opens the house and looks around the hall. It’s much lighter than before, and the tiles aren’t cracked. The staircase also looks different without the thick carpet of dust and fallen leaves. But Paulo knows where he has to go now.

He doesn’t stop before he reaches the large mahogany door with brass handles. He remembers where the door leads, and knows that the mirror shards are gone now. Mario must remember it too, since he takes a step back from the door.

“No,” he whispers.

“There’s no other way to prove it to you,” Paulo says. “You need to finally see what I see.”

He pushes the door and gasps. The hall shines more than anything he has ever seen, the light from the tall windows reflecting in the dozens of golden framed mirrors. He walks in like something pushes him, simply dragging Mario along more than he purposefully makes him enter.

“Look,” he says then, standing in front of one mirror.

Mario opens his eyes hesitantly, facing the mirror. His body tenses when he sees his reflection, and for a moment, even Paulo is worried that maybe the magic didn’t work. But then Mario reaches out to the glass, like he wants to touch his reflection to make sure it’s not a different person standing in front of him.

He looks at himself for a long, long time.

Then he turns around and runs to another mirror, like it could show him something else. Paulo smiles and walks up to him as Mario stands in the middle of the room, looking around at the dozens of reflections. Then he puts his arms around his neck and kisses him.

It’s like he kisses him dozens of times at once.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is <3.


End file.
